The Battle of the Two Me

Romans 7:14-25

This passage of scripture seems to be pretty straight forward.  Paul is battling two people.  The inner Paul who seeks to do good, and the Paul of the human who seems to do wrong no matter how hard he wishes to please God.  It seems the classic struggle of flesh vs spirit that dominates scripture especially in the Old Testament.

Further reading though seems to bring a different view.  Each time one rereads this passage a new insight seems to come to mind.  The first time I read this passage I admit that the classic flesh vs spirit struggle was plain to see.  Then on second reading it seems what Paul was writing is that one side we have the saved Christian struggling to do good in a world dominated by temptations.  It is only the grace of Christ that saves us.

A third reading brought something new and fresh to me.  I asked this, "Who is the I Paul is speaking of?"  It does not seem to be the saved Paul who is apostle and witness of Jesus.  It seems Paul is addressing someone other than himself.  With this I broke down verse by verse and this is the result.  I think it a very solid meditation for Lent.

Paul is not describing his Christian experience or his pre-Christian experience, then he must be describing a non-Christian experience.  However, it cannot be simply any non-Christian whom he is describing; the "I" of 7:14-25 is too specifically defined for that to be so.  Also, the non-Christian whom Paul describes seems to have a rather Christian understanding of the inability of the law to bring about obedience to that law.  I believe that at this point Gerd Theissen's comments about Paul's use of the fictive "I," are helpful here.  The non-Christian whom Paul describes is not any one person or grouping of people; rather, he is a figment of Paul's imagination.  The "I" of whom Paul speaks is a non-Christian as seen through Paul's eyes, which explains why such a person would have such a Christian view of his non-Christian condition.

But still he is not just any non-Christian.  At this point I must disagree with the suggestion put forward by many that Paul is envisioning humanity as a corporate Adam.  While I do agree that Paul would quite firmly depict all humanity apart from Christ as being "fleshly, sold under sin," the imaginary non-Christian whom Paul is viewing through Christian eyes is much too aware of the importance, if not the true function, of the law to be simply any Gentile who lives "apart from the law" (Romans 2:12).  I believe rather that Paul is musing about the condition of his fellow Jews, who lay claim to the law without understanding what its real purpose is, who try to do the good while all the time missing the point of justification by faith in Christ, not by works of the law.  

Of course, the Jews themselves are not thinking this way any more than did Paul think this way before he trusted Christ.  His description in 7:14-25 is not a psychological depiction of the agony the Jew feels while trying to obey the law; if it were, the entire Jewish nation would have been rushing to faith in Christ for relief from their struggle!  Paul's description is more pointedly the Christian awareness of the inability of humanity apart from God to do what is good, which, in the final analysis, would be to come to Christ on our own and by our own efforts.  The purpose of the law is to lead people to Christ for justification (cf. Galatians 3:23- 24), and the ultimate irony and tragedy of the power of sin is its leading people to look to their own "lawfulness" for justification instead.  It is much like confusing a highway exit sign on I35 that reads "DALLAS NEXT 13 EXITS" with the city itself; the sign points to the destination, but it is by no means itself the destination, and to pull to a stop and chain oneself to the sign is in fact to miss the destination.  And, Paul would say, the ultimate tragedy is that the people who have chained themselves to the sign (and who are thereby blocking the road for others) aren't even aware that they have missed the whole point of the journey, which is the main reason why he grieves so earnestly for his fellow Jews in 9:1 and wishes that somehow he could take their place so that they might know the justification which God had always intended for them. 

       Verse 14: "For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold under sin."  When Paul says, "I am fleshly," he is describing the non-Christian as he or she is seen by the Christian.  The contrast between the spiritual and the fleshly is here just as certain as it is in Romans 8:5-11, where Paul insists that to be in the Spirit makes it impossible for one to be in the flesh also, and vice versa.  The condition of being sold under sin refers not to observable misdeeds but rather to the most central truth about a person outside of Christ.

        Verse 15: "For that which I am doing I do not know; for I am not practicing this 

thing which I wish, but I am doing this thing which I hate."  Rather than being a confession of bewilderment over why one goes on committing "the same old sins" even as a Christian or a non-Christian's lament over his inability to keep the law, this statement reflects a truth which is hopelessly invisible to the person outside of Christ.  It is not that "I" do not understand what "I" am doing; "I" don't even know what "I" am doing.  In "my" striving to fulfill the law "I" am completely oblivious to the fact that "I" am failing to do what "I" in fact want to do, which is to fulfill the law by coming to faith in Christ.  "I" end up doing what "I" hate without even realizing it.  "I" am not misinformed; "I" am blind.

        Verse 16: "But if I am doing this thing which I do not wish, I agree with the law that it is good."  Since the person in Paul's mind wants to fulfill the law, even if in his own distorted way, his failure to do so is his unwitting testimony that the law is indeed good, since his failure is the performing of the very evil that he seeks to avoid.

        Verse 17: "But now no longer am I doing it, but sin which dwells in me."  Only a Christian could make a statement like this; no one of his or her own flesh could conclude that they are under the total mastery of sin, for the deception of sin is that it is possible to overcome sin by trying to keep the law.

        Verse 18: "For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh; for to will is at hand in me, but to work the good is not."  Paul is not here stating that there is a duality within the non-Christian about whom he is musing, for "flesh" is not merely one part of a person apart from Christ but rather is all that the person is.  The will to please God is short-circuited by the presence of sin to such an extent that the person is completely unable to do what he wishes -- and he or she doesn't even know it.

        Verses 19-20: "For I am not doing the good which I wish, but I am practicing this evil which I do not wish.  But if I am doing this thing which I do not wish, I am no longer doing it but sin which dwells in me."  Here Paul restates what he has already pointed out in verses 15 and 17, thereby forming an inclusio around verse eighteen, which is the heart of the human condition apart from Christ.

        Verse 21: "I find then the law, in me who wishes to do good, that evil is at hand with me."  "Wishes to do good" are no match for the law of evil and indeed only fuel that law, since the "wishing" is going on "in the flesh," in the whole person enslaved to sin.

        Verses 22-23: "For I rejoice with the law of God according to the inner humanity, but I see another law in my members at war with the law of my mind and imprisoning me to the law of sin which is in my members."  This statement must not be taken to indicate that there is a "spark of good" even within sinful humanity, for the rejoicing with God's law that is mentioned is a rejoicing that, as Paul says in 10:2, "is not according to knowledge."  Rather, it is according to the law of sin which imprisons the would-be God-pleaser.

        Verses 24-25a: "I am a wretched man; who will deliver me from the body of this death?  But thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!"  Again, no non-Christian in his zeal for the law would say this.  More likely, he would say with Paul the Pharisee that, according to the righteousness of the law, he was found blameless.  The wretchedness of humanity apart from God is not apparent to that humanity; only the Spirit can enlighten one that Jesus Christ alone can liberate a person from the unsuspected prison of sin.

        Verse 25b: "Consequently, then, I myself with the mind am serving the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin."  The pathetic state of religious and non-religious humanity apart from Christ becomes obvious.  The non-Christian truly believes that he or she is serving God, while in reality it is sin that is the master, wreaking its destruction through the person's flesh, which, for humanity apart from Christ, is all there is.

As people who are "spiritual," not "fleshly," we need not fall helplessly before the onslaught of sin (which was our life before Christ) but may with full confidence place our trust in Christ, through whom we have been freed from sin.  Whereas before we had no choice but to go on doing the evil that we hated and not the good that we wished, now there is a choice.  If we should go on living as if we did not know Christ, as if we had not been freed from sin, then this does not mean that we are expressing our deepest nature, because our deepest nature is now that of Christ, not sin.  Rather, we would be living as people who were "nearsighted and blind, forgetful of the cleansing of past sins" (2 Peter 3:9).  

This observation brings us back to where we started, for the second epistle of Peter warned us at the beginning that some things in Paul's letters are difficult to understand!  Nevertheless, one thing is certain: because of Christ, we may, as people freed from sin, "not let sin exercise dominion in our mortal bodies, to make us obey its passions" (Romans 6:12); instead, we may "present ourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and our members to God as instruments of righteousness" (6:13).  This is both the hope of joyful service to God and the guarantee thereof.